"And Darkness, royal and sad, will come to the cliffs.
Sparks that have become beams will stand in the darkness,
Against it, they will burn.
And the beams may only shine through if, in their radiance,
The Darkness sees itself, and knows.
And then, the Darkness, royal and unfeeling, will come to the cliffs.
In the night, only the beams will shine
Holding til the seventh light breaks on the dawn."
--Shian Petep, prostitute and fortune-teller of the Wine-and-Song brothel in Port Calin
"...what does that mean for long-term investments?"
--customer
Random, everyday thoughts of an inveterate gamer.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Death TV.
I think I've mentioned that I really don't watch TV normally. I salute websites like hulu.com that understand that sometimes I can't, or don't want to, watch TV during normal prime-time. And because I watch TV online, often I can quickly catch up through a huge backlog of episodes, given a few days and sufficient interest in the show.
I remember seeing ads for Pushing Daisies when it first started, but I never buckled down and checked out an episode, so I missed out, until now. But, having run out of episodes I can get ahold of (and nearly out of episodes, period), I hopped over to another series by the creator--Dead Like Me.
Similar to Pushing Daisies, the show is all about death, and death is in every episode. But Dead Like Me is far from the cheesy, sunshiney world created for a show on ABC. The characters are closer to our world--dirtier sometimes, or more angry, or more screwed up. There are still odd, arcane rules about how things happen, or should happen. The main character, George, dies and becomes a "grim reaper," but just as important as seeing how that other half lives, we get to see how our half deals with George's loss, how her family copes and moves on, or not.
The pilot brought tears to my eyes--death is arbitrary and unfair, and the show acknowledges that. The people who collect souls don't know much more than the people dying, as it turns out. So far in the series, George, the new girl on the job (and rather disaffected in life) keeps asking "Why?"
Why me?
Why her?
Why not?
Why do some people get to keep living?
Why do I keep losing people?
Conversely, her "boss," a senior reaper, basically keeps answering "Because." And he has experience to back it up--but the answer is often "Because. Sorry, but deal with it."
I can't wait to keep watching. I love this cast, and I can't wait for the leader of the pack of reapers to be proven wrong by the new girl.
~j
I remember seeing ads for Pushing Daisies when it first started, but I never buckled down and checked out an episode, so I missed out, until now. But, having run out of episodes I can get ahold of (and nearly out of episodes, period), I hopped over to another series by the creator--Dead Like Me.
Similar to Pushing Daisies, the show is all about death, and death is in every episode. But Dead Like Me is far from the cheesy, sunshiney world created for a show on ABC. The characters are closer to our world--dirtier sometimes, or more angry, or more screwed up. There are still odd, arcane rules about how things happen, or should happen. The main character, George, dies and becomes a "grim reaper," but just as important as seeing how that other half lives, we get to see how our half deals with George's loss, how her family copes and moves on, or not.
The pilot brought tears to my eyes--death is arbitrary and unfair, and the show acknowledges that. The people who collect souls don't know much more than the people dying, as it turns out. So far in the series, George, the new girl on the job (and rather disaffected in life) keeps asking "Why?"
Why me?
Why her?
Why not?
Why do some people get to keep living?
Why do I keep losing people?
Conversely, her "boss," a senior reaper, basically keeps answering "Because." And he has experience to back it up--but the answer is often "Because. Sorry, but deal with it."
I can't wait to keep watching. I love this cast, and I can't wait for the leader of the pack of reapers to be proven wrong by the new girl.
~j
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Owls.
Today is Wednesday--
Ten wings and fries for six bucks.
Why not like Hooters?
(This is fine because Wednesday is pronounced with 2 syllables. Ha.)
~j
Ten wings and fries for six bucks.
Why not like Hooters?
(This is fine because Wednesday is pronounced with 2 syllables. Ha.)
~j
Monday, July 6, 2009
Going Somewhere.
Everyone I know is travelling.
Literally, everyone. I can walk down the streets of Champaign (walking, I'll get to later in this post) secure in the knowledge that I will meet noone I know. They're all gone--or going, or coming back. They're just not here. Or wherever they're supposed to be.
My parents moved to Florida last month. I initially didn't seem to be affected by this, but thinking about going "home" to visit family is full of complications now that home is someone else's. And I'll miss the place. It wasn't the only place I grew up in, but it was the place I grew up in the longest. Since I've moved to Champaign, I could always come back, basically whenever, and know that I could crash there. Now, I'm rather sure that I'd be unwelcome, as the new owners have no idea who I am.
But I digress. My parents are in Florida. This is a longish way away--but I'm happy for them. It's a reward for long (but gracious!) selfless lives. But it doesn't feel like it where they should be, yet.
My sister and her family and my little brother are heading down to visit them.
My little sister is in Europe with her guy. Facebook says she was heading to Rome 9 hours ago, so I'll assume they're basically there now.
My cousin and aunt were in Germany for the 4th, and probably still are.
One of the managers here at Friday's is on his way back from visiting family in Florida. Screw Rome, it seems all roads lead there.
Then, there's me.
This morning, I tried to unlock my bike, and the plastic grip snapped, leaving the key sticking out of the lock. It seemed a little much, but the lock had been sticking recently, so I didn't think that much of it.
I got a pair of pliers, got a good grip on the key, and turned. The key bent. I straightened it out, gently, and tried simply pulling the key out. The metal ripped. Now I have half a key stuck in my bike lock.
Everyone I know is travelling, and it's a miracle I can get to work. An object at rest...
~j
Literally, everyone. I can walk down the streets of Champaign (walking, I'll get to later in this post) secure in the knowledge that I will meet noone I know. They're all gone--or going, or coming back. They're just not here. Or wherever they're supposed to be.
My parents moved to Florida last month. I initially didn't seem to be affected by this, but thinking about going "home" to visit family is full of complications now that home is someone else's. And I'll miss the place. It wasn't the only place I grew up in, but it was the place I grew up in the longest. Since I've moved to Champaign, I could always come back, basically whenever, and know that I could crash there. Now, I'm rather sure that I'd be unwelcome, as the new owners have no idea who I am.
But I digress. My parents are in Florida. This is a longish way away--but I'm happy for them. It's a reward for long (but gracious!) selfless lives. But it doesn't feel like it where they should be, yet.
My sister and her family and my little brother are heading down to visit them.
My little sister is in Europe with her guy. Facebook says she was heading to Rome 9 hours ago, so I'll assume they're basically there now.
My cousin and aunt were in Germany for the 4th, and probably still are.
One of the managers here at Friday's is on his way back from visiting family in Florida. Screw Rome, it seems all roads lead there.
Then, there's me.
This morning, I tried to unlock my bike, and the plastic grip snapped, leaving the key sticking out of the lock. It seemed a little much, but the lock had been sticking recently, so I didn't think that much of it.
I got a pair of pliers, got a good grip on the key, and turned. The key bent. I straightened it out, gently, and tried simply pulling the key out. The metal ripped. Now I have half a key stuck in my bike lock.
Everyone I know is travelling, and it's a miracle I can get to work. An object at rest...
~j
Saturday, July 4, 2009
The Other Half.
Okay, today, instead of playing World of Warcraft Alliance side, with my guild and all of the stuff I've built up there, we played some Horde characters we had on another server.
We looked for a guild. We were mostly interested in another RP guild--since the server was an RP server, and we had characters there on purpose. Last night I was doing some searching online for info about RP guilds there, and we finally found one that wasn't horribly specific enough to disqualify our characters, but actually had active players. Today, we jumped through hoops. I understand that if people are willing to go through all sorts of things in order to get a guild invite, they're less likely to beg for stuff and then run. We posted in-character things on this guild's forums. We joined their out-of-character chat channel. We talked to their guild leader.
And we ran around, doing Horde quests and leveling a bit. It was fun. One of the main drawbacks I see to RPing on the Horde side of the game is most of the character races are more monstrous. I play humans because, well, it's fairly simple to figure them out. But when I actually spend time trying, it's not so bad playing a "Hordie." Most of the monstrous races are vaguely (or not) connected to a real-world ethnic or racial group, so if you start there, it's not really much harder than playing a "normal" human, as long as you do a bit of research.
This other server has an actual community of RP, which makes me think about our "home" server a bit differently. Do we have a community for RP? How hard would it be to advertise that a bit more, to get people involved? Beats the hell out of everyone running around, doing their own thing.
Heck, I may be a bit more picky in how my guild recruits. Because if we manage to get space on a Wiki built for the guilds of the server, then people will see us, read about us, decide we're awesome. And making people jump through hoops makes them even more determined to stick around.
After a couple of days of dealing with the Horde side of the game, I've learned a little, and maybe I'll bring some of it back. And maybe I'll keep playing my Horde characters a bit more often. I don't know if you can call it personal growth, but hey--not gonna be picky.
For the Horde.
~j
We looked for a guild. We were mostly interested in another RP guild--since the server was an RP server, and we had characters there on purpose. Last night I was doing some searching online for info about RP guilds there, and we finally found one that wasn't horribly specific enough to disqualify our characters, but actually had active players. Today, we jumped through hoops. I understand that if people are willing to go through all sorts of things in order to get a guild invite, they're less likely to beg for stuff and then run. We posted in-character things on this guild's forums. We joined their out-of-character chat channel. We talked to their guild leader.
And we ran around, doing Horde quests and leveling a bit. It was fun. One of the main drawbacks I see to RPing on the Horde side of the game is most of the character races are more monstrous. I play humans because, well, it's fairly simple to figure them out. But when I actually spend time trying, it's not so bad playing a "Hordie." Most of the monstrous races are vaguely (or not) connected to a real-world ethnic or racial group, so if you start there, it's not really much harder than playing a "normal" human, as long as you do a bit of research.
This other server has an actual community of RP, which makes me think about our "home" server a bit differently. Do we have a community for RP? How hard would it be to advertise that a bit more, to get people involved? Beats the hell out of everyone running around, doing their own thing.
Heck, I may be a bit more picky in how my guild recruits. Because if we manage to get space on a Wiki built for the guilds of the server, then people will see us, read about us, decide we're awesome. And making people jump through hoops makes them even more determined to stick around.
After a couple of days of dealing with the Horde side of the game, I've learned a little, and maybe I'll bring some of it back. And maybe I'll keep playing my Horde characters a bit more often. I don't know if you can call it personal growth, but hey--not gonna be picky.
For the Horde.
~j
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Better Late.
My rule is, if I'm still awake from the previous day, it still counts.
Yet again, my family educates me about neato stuff. I'd talked to my dad on the phone last week, and he'd mentioned that most of the family had Skype, so we could all conference call, and it was cool--particularly since the folks just moved to Florida, and my sister and her guy were traveling around Europe. So I downloaded the installer, and promptly forgot about it.
Today, messing around on Facebook (another thing my sibs got me on), I get a message from my sister's boyfriend's account, telling me their Skype login. I took the hint, and actually ran the installer and set up my own account.
20 minutes later, I was having a conversation with my dad in Florida and my sister in Germany. I was doing this from my laptop, at work.
I freaking love technology.
I didn't get the webcam set up--it was working, but this being my first "call," I didn't want to make it too complicated. But now I want to get it going. How fun would that be! I can already imagine Skype RPG sessions, calling my girlfriend up to say goodnight, saying hi to my niece....
Being more social sure is more appealing to me when I get to use a computer to do it.
~j
Yet again, my family educates me about neato stuff. I'd talked to my dad on the phone last week, and he'd mentioned that most of the family had Skype, so we could all conference call, and it was cool--particularly since the folks just moved to Florida, and my sister and her guy were traveling around Europe. So I downloaded the installer, and promptly forgot about it.
Today, messing around on Facebook (another thing my sibs got me on), I get a message from my sister's boyfriend's account, telling me their Skype login. I took the hint, and actually ran the installer and set up my own account.
20 minutes later, I was having a conversation with my dad in Florida and my sister in Germany. I was doing this from my laptop, at work.
I freaking love technology.
I didn't get the webcam set up--it was working, but this being my first "call," I didn't want to make it too complicated. But now I want to get it going. How fun would that be! I can already imagine Skype RPG sessions, calling my girlfriend up to say goodnight, saying hi to my niece....
Being more social sure is more appealing to me when I get to use a computer to do it.
~j
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